Saturday, December 12, 2009

Holidays

Christmas has always been a national holiday in my house. The tree goes up the day after Thanksgiving. The house gets decorated then too. It looks like Christmas threw up all over my house.There are snowmen in the bathroom.Cookie tins on the walls.Wax glass cleaner is used to decorate the windows and sliding glass doors.Wreaths on the doors.Charlie Brown Christmas lights outside.The kitchen smells of cookies and gingerbread.Handmade stockings hang in the house.The cats try to knock down the lower ornaments and use them as cat toys so you find them all over the house.

Christmas seems better with family and friends around. Yet we seem to have an ever shrinking group. It used to be that we had a large extended family, but a casualty of Mom's illness seems to be that it's just us. Part of it also seems to be that after years of traveling, I am unaccustomed to rebuilding my own circle of friends.

Yet there is something magical about a house decorated for Christmas. As though, even as adults we try to recapture some of the magic we once held so dear as a child. Perhaps we are disappointed when it doesn't appear. Or perhaps we create the magic ourselves. Perhaps by going through the motions we force ourselves to believe.